Jérémie Pellet : “In North Africa, providing entrepreneurs with the tools to succeed, and more…”
The year 2024 marks the 10th anniversary of the creation of Expertise France, and three years since its integration into the AFD Group. Beyond promoting entrepreneurship in Tunisia, Jérémie Pellet, the agency's Director General, presents the agency's actions in North Africa and across the African continent.
Can you remind us of Expertise France’s role and how the agency has evolved since its creation?
Expertise France is the French public agency for international technical cooperation. It was created in 2015 through the merger of several ministerial cooperation operators. We joined the AFD Group on January 1, 2022.
Expertise France’s mission is to provide public service in equal cooperation, peer-to-peer, across the world, and its activities fall within the framework of France’s foreign action. We implement projects in nearly 150 countries, with a stronger presence on the African continent, in line with French and European priorities, to support the development of public policies that contribute to stability, sustainable development, good governance, and human development. This is achieved through the implementation of numerous projects, large regional programs, or the deployment of expertise or technical assistance. Expertise France thus acts as the operator to mobilize French expertise in public policy.
Over the past ten years, the agency has transformed, moving from scattered operators within ministries to an international-scale agency with more than 2,200 employees. This change in scale is also reflected at the European level: in 2020, Expertise France became the second-largest technical cooperation agency in Europe. Its activity has grown from €115 million in 2015 to €450 million in 2024. This highly positive record demonstrates our dynamism and ability to efficiently execute the projects entrusted to us.
We are part of a broader dynamic that mobilizes all French and European operators to best support positive and sustainable economic and societal dynamics on the continent
With the integration into the AFD Group, Expertise France is no longer limited to its own intervention resources but now benefits from all the resources of solidarity development policies.
This integration offers us immense potential, enabling us to finance large-scale public policies through AFD’s financial instruments, now combined with Expertise France’s expertise and support.
As highlighted by the Expertise Rendezvous in Tunis on September 26, why did you choose to support African entrepreneurs, particularly those from the diaspora, such as the Tunisian diaspora?
As you mentioned, the African continent is at the heart of Expertise France’s interventions and, more broadly, those of the AFD Group. We are part of a broader dynamic that mobilizes all French and European operators to best support sustainable economic and societal dynamics on the continent. Regarding entrepreneurs, we took a different approach. Until now, diasporas had not been considered relevant actors in supporting African economies.
However, the numbers speak for themselves: remittances sent by diasporas worldwide to their countries of origin amount to four times the total public development aid. Among these diasporas, many entrepreneurs have a deep understanding of their countries of origin and can serve as intermediaries between European and African markets. These entrepreneurs are also increasingly eager to invest in these regions they know well.
With the MEET Africa project, we sought to support these entrepreneurs. Aware of the shared desire on both continents, we aim to support wealth and job-creating solutions that are closely aligned with African realities. With MEET Africa, we bet on creating and fostering an entrepreneurial ecosystem between these diasporas and European and African support actors, both institutional and private, from ministries to entrepreneurship support structures. We listen, assess, and connect actors who each have different approaches to supporting diasporas.
The ambition of a program like MEET Africa is to bring together both African and European entrepreneurs. Are you encouraging synergies between countries and continents?
Absolutely. MEET Africa stands for « European Mobilization for Entrepreneurship in Africa, » with the European dimension at the heart of the project. It is co-financed by the European Union, along with the AFD, and has been implemented since its first phase in 2016 with the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ).
We are working intelligently on this program, opening it to anyone who can contribute to supporting a sustainable and inclusive economy in Africa. We also complement other entrepreneurship support programs implemented by other French public agencies, such as BPI or Business France.
There is a need for solutions that create wealth and jobs as close to African realities as possible, and we must address that need
In 2025, in line with French priorities for the African continent following the Presidential Development Council in May 2023, we will continue to strengthen our activities in promoting youth innovation and entrepreneurship, which serves as a bridge between our two continents.
Expertise France will celebrate its 10th anniversary at the end of this year. What is the current image of the agency?
The results are extremely positive. Expertise France, through its dual role as an inter-ministerial technical cooperation agency and a member of the AFD Group, is now well-structured to respond efficiently, coherently, and in partnership with French priorities in terms of sustainable and inclusive investments.
At the European level, our integration into the AFD Group has strengthened our dialogue with our European counterparts and EU institutions. In 2023, Expertise France assumed the presidency of the European cooperation agency network for the second time. I was committed to better structuring and strengthening this network with a Team Europe approach. Additionally, Expertise France’s international presence is growing in all sectors, whether traditional ones like health or sustainable development, or newer areas like economic development, culture, heritage, territorial attractiveness, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, or space. To sustainably support and structure its growth, we are strengthening our field network. In 2023, we chose to decentralize our activities further, resulting in a stronger partnership with AFD on the ground.
How will your actions on the continent, particularly in Tunisia, Morocco, or Libya, be highlighted during this occasion?
To celebrate Expertise France’s 10th anniversary, we are organizing a major event on February 13 at Station F in Paris, with many prominent figures from the international cooperation community, our partners, project beneficiaries, artists, and civil society members in attendance. We will showcase several emblematic projects from the past decade and give the floor to the women and men who contributed to them. Among these diverse perspectives, we will highlight actors from the RETFOP project in Angola, which aims to enhance technical education and vocational training in partnership with the Instituto Camões, as well as those from the « For Her – Sport and Culture » project in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which seeks to improve the quality of life, physical and mental well-being of young girls through sports and cultural activities in Kinshasa.
We are moving forward intelligently on this Forum, opening it to anyone who can contribute to supporting a sustainable and inclusive economy in Africa
A book will also be published at the end of the year, featuring ten iconic projects illustrated with photographs that showcase the agency’s dynamic and diverse work in all its areas of intervention. The book will include sections on the Innov’i-EU4Innovation and Greenov’i projects in Tunisia, where one of our priorities is supporting innovative structures, startups, and all young companies committed to ecological transition. These project stories will be told from the perspectives of partners and beneficiaries, symbolizing the co-construction work we do every day.
Additionally, we will present museum cooperation projects in Cameroon and Benin, including the modernization of the National Museum of Yaoundé and the Museum of the Kings of Dahomey in Abomey, efforts to combat infectious diseases and support health services in Guinea (PASA2), and vocational training support in Rwanda (AFTER).
Lastly, this year, we established a partnership with TV5Monde and produced ten field reports. Among them is the renovation of the Carthage Museum in Tunisia, part of the promotion of world cultural heritage, and support for communities in Morocco’s Ifrane National Park, facing the challenge of preserving national forests.
